Song for My Assassin
by Riesx
Summary: Spoilers up to 7.22. Slightly Future AU-Purgatory is in between Heaven and Hell, neither saintly nor evil. Time is irrelevant and the denizens have their own way of 'living'. Righteous men can become dangerous souls and Angels who have fallen can regain their grace. Castiel and Dean have made this their home until they have forgotten who they really are.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: Song for My Assassin  
**Rating**: Light M for violence  
**Pairing**: Destiel (implied in this chapter; definitely more in the future!)  
**Summary**: Spoilers up to 7.22. Slightly Future AU-Purgatory is in between Heaven and Hell, neither saintly nor evil. Time is irrelevant and the denizens have their own way of 'living'. Righteous men can become dangerous souls and Angels who have fallen can regain their grace. Castiel and Dean have made this their home until they have forgotten who they really are. Dean has lost his purpose, but through a series of events, Castiel attempts to return them on their destined path. Even if it leads them both back to Hell. (Castiel's viewpoint)

**A/N**: I really don't know what type of crack I was on when I wrote this :). This first chapter takes place after Dean and Castiel have been in Purgatory for some time and find their roles slightly reversed and everything is topsy-turvy. The subsequent chapters will go back and explain how they got to this point. Make sense? I hope so. Please enjoy, and as always...reviews/suggestions are always and forever appreciated! Thanks!

**One night I burned the house I loved,**  
**It lit a perfect ring**  
**In which I saw some weeds and stone**  
**Beyond - not anything.**

**Certain creatures of the air**  
**Frightened by the night,**  
**They came to see the world again**  
**And perished in the light.**

**Now I sail from sky to sky**  
**And all the blackness sings**  
**Against the boat that I have made**  
**Of mutilated wings.**

**- One Night I Burned**  
**(Leonard Cohen)**

So it has finally happened; the thing we had for so long ignored. They are all gone now, done with existing in the silence between this breath and the last. Oh, we were so naïve to underestimate the nature of evil as we did! And I? Oh, I was the dumbest of all, falling under your spell as if one possessed. I know you didn't trust me. Gods know I never trusted you. But sometimes, need overrides conscience. Passion blinds us all.

It probably would have shocked them, a relationship like this. Only we knew why it came to pass and what form it would end up taking. I cannot count the times I would say to myself, "Keep in mind, they are monsters, Castiel! Keep in mind….!" But oh, how many things the touch of your eyes to mine made me forget. The long, endless conversations we held over cooling cups of brandy by the fading fire still linger in my nerve endings. I can still remember your flawless face. Your scent is permanently ingrained in my clothes. I thought that might mean something. But in the end it represented nothing. Like so much sand sifting through opened fingers.

None of us ever talked about what might happen if you turned on us; if we failed to capture your interest one minute more. But I guess we do now, don't we?

It was all so quick, really. It is a wonder I can remember a thing. The Lodging House was quiet and I was glad to be a temporary night guest, wandering about the halls I had grown to love as I myself grew into adulthood. I had even planned to visit you the next day. Sleeping in the spare room, dreaming of meeting you again with open arms after so many years, I was awakened by the screams and the swearing and the magic being used. I smelt the blood. I ran up the steep stone stairway, feeling the pull of your presence. I knew before I saw you.

Anna. Poor little girl. You left her lying in the massive pool of her blood at the head of the stairs. A still porcelain doll gazing down the long corridor of death. I will take her blank stare to my own grave. I dragged myself to the last room at the end of the hall. Everything became silent, white noise in the background as I opened the bedroom door….It was so horrific. I couldn't bare to look, but had to. I felt compelled to memorize this killing ground as the sole survivor; the only witness to these atrocities of the blackest heart.

It was clear they had fought well, but apparently not well enough. Lying on the bed, witch next to were-crow next to witch (how you had placed them, no doubt), they reminded me of a nursery rhyme. Three little maids, all in a row…I noticed the tattered, dirty long coat you had left behind. And in that moment, something clicked inside my mind. I felt it swelling up. A resurgence of the old demon. We are more alike than you will ever know. And the angel of death, reaper of souls, whispered in my ear. Told me to tend the mind ghosts before they overwhelm. _The fact is, __**old man**__, you…know…nothing!_

There would be no funerals, for who was left to mourn? And if strangers piled ten-deep around their gravestones, I would still want to scream, "Bury the dead! Say the Proper Prayers! It only does the Living good!" But I was never one for scenes. There would be no coffins to jump on to and take a six-foot ride down, crying all the while. No, that would never do.

Numbly, I retrieved my weapons, the gas can, matches…and went about my wretched work. There was nothing left for me in that house anymore. Just sorrow and carnage. Nothing blessed. Everything that's good was gone. So I burned it down around them until there was nothing left but bone. Bone and ash and faded memories of loveliness. Nearly suffocating on the fumes, the lack of oxygen, I stumbled into the yard. On bloody hands and knees I watched, said my last goodbyes. And oh, you should have seen the flames rising high into the starry sky, consuming the night.

I made the familiar journey to the hospital, knowing what I was to find. You left no corner unturned, did you? In a busy hallway I found him, taking his last breaths. They say it was the worst condition they had ever seen him in. A broken bone or two, singed fingertips from spell gone wrong, blackened eye, but nothing like this. Never like this. I held the boy's hand, my only remaining link to the world, the one I thought of as 'Son'. I was surprised at his remaining strength. He could barely whisper and I remember his eyes as well (blue-green pools of warmth like yours and your Mother's before you), holding just the barest glimpse of Life. And that was slowly draining out. I sat by his side for what seemed like hours as he related the story to me. In retrospect, what was left to us were mere moments. As he started to slip away, he made me promise to keep her safe. To take care of his beloved. Her and all the rest. He didn't know the truth and I didn't have the heart to tell him.

Svetlana. She was the last. Comatose and hooked up to a million beeping machines that couldn't do a bloody thing for her. A 1,000 year immortal, older than us all, still clinging to life. Wanting to drink all the world's juices, squeezing it down to the pulpy rind. And what could I do? I'm not a doctor, not a healer of any kind, really. I had these thoughts and many more before turning the switches to their off positions. I stood and stared at her beautiful black face as the physicians ran screaming past me, knowing there was nothing to be done, but frantically attempting for a miracle.

I am beyond miracles now.

I slipped out of the building unseen, silent invisibility a skill I've developed over time.

Is that all I was now? Now that I had lost everything that mattered? Just a man with his books, passive talents and the remnants of the people he once knew.

This is all I shall take with me. These tokens of the misbegotten. Jasleen's rose quartz, Anna's silver cross, Taren and Svetlana's rings: they hang around my neck. Four nooses of remembrance. I've saved the sleek black crow's feather, fallen from Layla's form during a particularly difficult transformation lesson. It is pressed against the braid of hair in my pocket, gold entwined with red, I sheared from my two darling witch girl's this very night. I have even donned your old long coat. It fits well over these mutilated wings you have failed to clip.

I am carrying the dead, you see.

I have focused the burning rage inward. I could save none of them. My weaknesses caused it. And with your words, your every move, you helped me make this. These notes are for you.

A song for my assassin.

The sultry, somber notes shall hypnotize, lull you into soft complacency. And while the innocent might float away to the land of Winkin, Blinkin and Nod…you will sink down into the fiery depths of my soul. Experience the world I was left in.

I am starting down the long dark road. I know it will lead to you. They are coming with me, all of them. And I will find you. Hold you in one last cold embrace. And this jaunty tune I hum as I grow nearer, this requiem for my children, this dirge for all the dead will be the last thing you hear. It is a knowledge so ingrained in my mind, all doubts and fears are eradicated.

You do not deserve forever.

I will be the one to take it from you.


	2. Place the Moon at My Eyes: Dean Begins

Place the moon at my eyes and her whiteness shall devour the false sights the Deciever has placed there. (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell)

_Get up, kid. Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to keep people waiting?_

A low melodic voice reached out to Dean from where he lay prone on the ground. Vision glazed, he jerked into an upright position as fast as his evaporating drowsiness would allow. Without even thinking, he grasped for the knife that was usually always somewhere on his person (showers not withstanding) and encountered only emptiness.

_Okay, now fear may be a viable option Dean. What the blue fuck is going on?_

"Over here, son." Dean turned from his crouched position, trying to assertain where the danger, if any, was stirring. Instead, as his vision cleared, he came to realize he had been transported to a park. A park that was filled with trees in full autumnal bloom and a clear night sky full of stars hovering above. The man speaking to him was sitting casually on a nearby bench, long legs stretched out to their full length; a mischevious grin plastered on a thin handsome face. "Come on. Take a seat. We don't have much time."

"Wha- Why? What do you mean?" Dean didn't know if he should be cautious or relieved. His recent nightmares had been non-stop nostalgia tours of Hell and beyond. This was certaintly not any un-reality he was used to.

The stranger's grin stretched out until it was as if his entire face would fall apart. "Please do me the honor, Dean." A bright flash of white light, the sound of thunder and hundreds of cawing birds filled the air behind the man and Dean swore he could see the faint outline of wings. His mind was filled with the dizzying impression of falling.

_So it's an angel then? In my dream (nightmare? has there been much of a difference lately?) ?_

"Okay, then." Dean strode slowly over to the small bench and kept as much distance from the other man as it would allow. "You douchwads have got to stop dreamscaping me. It gets annoying."

The man made no move to near Dean, but instead looked down at his own hands with furrowed brow as if trying to decipher a puzzling future in their lines. Dean couldn't help but stare. He found all angels, if not assholes, extremely alluring. Although this one didn't have Cas' deep blue eyes and aquiline features, he did possess a magnetic quality that was hard to resist.

_Oh, please resist me, Dean. Temptation is the root of all sin. _The angel's voice resounded through Dean's head and he felt the weeks of hangovers clanging like drums at his temples.

"Why am I sick in a dream?" Dean held his head in his hands and doubled over to relieve whatever pain was next to come. "This is a Stupid dream."

The light brush of fingertips raked through his hair, the memory of every single time Cas' would ease his suffering if just for a little while flitted by. He was suffused with the hopeless sorrow he had just tried to drink away. And now here was another nerd angel trying to be his friend and read his mind and he really didn't want that. No, not at all.

"My name is Dalziel. We need to talk." Dean warily watched as the angel shifted his position and searched his face with an urgency that had not been there previously. The man brushed a strand of black wavy hair from his face and Dean saw that, unlike most of his brothers, this angel wore his long and pulled back into a loose ponytail. In fact, this guy was the only Native American looking vessel he had ever seen, not that he had seen hundreds. _But enough for twenty lifetimes and beyond._

"_Alright, shoot Dalz. Make it snappy. I have a lumpy motel bed to get back to." _

_Dean decided, despite his abrupt thousands of misgivings, to sit on the park bench near the second (and he couldn't *believe* he was actually rating now) most attractive angel he'd ever seen. It was either that or continue lying prone on the ground, but he already had enough dream-leaves in his hair. The traces of which were evaporating slowly, but were annoying nonetheless._

_Dalziel's thunder-tinged laughter didn't help much with the migraine. "Oh, Dean…you are not dreaming. Don't you remember? This is Purgatory."_

_And with the weigh of a million tons, reality came crashing down around him. Dean could actually see the atmosphere rip apart and dissolve as quickly as he had woken up. Apparently, this was just a short respite from the non-stop fighting he had been engaged in since arriving in this god(man, child, monster) forsaken place. _

_He was in a fucking *park*. With an angel. Not *his* angel. Just another jerk-off who thought he'd mess around with the fabric of time, universes and Dean Winchester's head. _

_Gritting his teeth so hard he could hear molars squeaking, Dean grasped Dalziel by the ponytail, stared into huge luminous eyes and asked the only question he wanted the answer to._

"_WHERE. IS. CAS?"_


End file.
